Show Notes

In today’s episode, Chantal Gray, registered social worker and psychotherapist, will discuss how to navigate private practice and being a new mom.

Hi Chantal. Welcome to the show. I’m so glad to have you here today.

Yes, I’m excited to be here.

Chantal, before we dive into today’s episode, please introduce yourself, where you’re from, and tell us a little bit about you and your practice journey.

Hi everyone. My name is Chantal Gray. I’m a registered social worker and psychotherapist and a new children’s book author, and I’ve had the privilege of working across various nonprofits and community boards over the years in Ontario. So my practice is actually located in Hamilton, Ontario.

I’m also a mom, so almost 2-year-old, which has added a whole new layer to my understanding of child development and family dynamics. So in my practice, I provide clinical supervision and I also work as a speaker and a workshop facilitator. I’m also always looking for ways to support community organizations and create opportunities for collaboration.

So tell us what it was like, stepping into motherhood, while you were running and building your private practice too.

 It’s been interesting, I must say stepping into motherhood while running a private practice. It’s been exhausting at points because you’re tired, sleep deprived, but it’s also been very rewarding. So I only took about two and a half months off before returning to work. We are still a small group practice at that time. So we only had Ruth, who was my co-founder, and another person, and I was very involved with the administrative side of things still while on maternity leave, I return emails and phone calls and trying to do the marketing and scheduling all while trying to care for a newborn.

As I said, it was a lot. It can be exhausting. So it was definitely a lot of juggling and I felt like my brain was constantly going. However, it is helpful to have a co-founder managing a lot of the day-to-day task, which allowed me to focus a little bit more on spending time with my daughter.

But it was really a learning opportunity to know my capacity, my limits, and trying to prioritize what really mattered at home and in my practice. But while it was challenging, it did teach me a lot about resilience, time management, and the importance of using systems.

Absolutely. And many people know that I’m, not as much of a new mom anymore. My daughter is over two years old. But with that, similar to you, I went back pretty quickly too. I went back after five months and even before I went back, I was still focusing on a lot of my passive income streams, like blogging, podcasting. I was updating my Master Writing the Psychology Today Profile course at the time. I literally had her in my lap and I was recording. Fortunately, I do it all like PowerPoint, so you couldn’t see my face. But for the most part, I was recording all of that during this five months. So I would say similar to you, I was probably. Maybe a month and a half, two months, and I was still doing some work, but I didn’t go back to one-to-one sessions until five.

And I’m sure we’re probably going to talk about this, but one thing that I noticed being a new mom is how sick kids get all the time and having to take time away from your practice that I did not prepare for. I am going to have to say. So I’m curious, being a new mom. How has that shifted your priorities in your practice?

Yes, great question. Becoming a mom has definitely shifted my priorities and you’re so right about children getting sick so easily, definitely cannot plan it. So I’ve realized I’ve had to work smarter, not harder. That means being more intentional about the kind of work I take on reducing how much work I was taking on. I would be the one to try to fit as much people into the day, but I realized I only have so much capacity for that. And as well, sometimes I would even try to have sessions during her nap time.

But as you realize as a mom, children don’t go down exactly whether you need them, that didn’t work out that well. Sometimes I’ve had to unfortunately cancel sessions because my child wouldn’t go to bed on time. So that did teach me a lot around, okay, I just have to decrease how much I can do.

So motherhood has also changed the way I show and my clinical work. It’s given me a deeper perspective, especially working with children and youth. I feel I can connect more with parents and caregivers in a more personal, empathetic way because I now understand the challenges being sleep deprived, the changes in your priorities. So I definitely have a lot more insight being a mom now.

 I agree with you a hundred percent. And one thing I always think about is how much time I wasted before being a mom and how now I actually think I’m even way more productive. But I have such limited time. Before I could, wake up at six in the morning if I wanted to do some work like my finances or my bookkeeping, do a blog, an email, whatever it was. I could do that, anytime from six in the morning till 10 at night if I wanted to. Now I have this short period of time that I have to fit everything in, and that short period of time is not wasted anymore like it used to be.

Yes, I can totally agree and it forces you to be very productive and focus on actual what’s important because it’s so easy to have a huge to-do list and some of it is not actually work that needs to be done. And I’m thankful for my daughter Because it did force me to slow down because I want to be intentional about spending time with her. So I even stopped working on Fridays, for example, and I cut out hours on Mondays. And I’m still able to support myself financially, which has been helpful. So working more doesn’t mean that you’ll be making more if you’re not being intentional about the time and actually what to invest your business in, right? I’m grateful for her, that aspect will be to slow down.

Absolutely. So what strategies help you balance both client needs with the unpredictability of parenting?

Yeah, so balancing client needs with the unpredictable rhythm is a learning process still is not a hundred percent perfect. Before becoming a mom, I would overstretch myself, depending clients who wanted to reach out last minute and I want a session today, and I would find a way, now I’m having to pause and actually ask myself, do I have childcare? Do I even have the capacity? Do I have someone to watch her or do I even want to? Can I right now?

So that’s have been questions that I’ve had to ask myself and having to set some boundaries around, “Sorry. But we can try to fit in tomorrow or the next day. Which has been really hard for me, even as a therapist. We teach people boundaries, but now having to do it myself has been a learning curve for me.

I may need to reschedule or reduce the number of clients that I have or pass them on to other clinicians on my team, so that I can make sure I’m showing up for clients and not being overstretched or not actually being present with them. So that’s really important to me.

And for example, if client require letters or other administrative things. To give them a reasonable amount of time. It can’t get done today. Give me two weeks or so to get it done right, so that I am not doing all these things and overstretching myself.

Absolutely. And I think something that I struggled with in the beginning, but actually I guess with practice I got better at is going back to my daughter being sick for the first year and a half of her life. She was sick every single month, like with the flu or stomach bug or something that would come up. Especially where she was in, a day home during that time and around other kids. And of course she herself was only five months in the beginning and so on. And when she’s sick, she can’t go to day home then. She’s home. So of course I’d have to cancel sessions or, cancel meetings, things like that.

Similarly after she got better, then I would get sick. So then it was almost like a week or two, trying to navigate through all of this. And that was very challenging in the beginning.

At first, I don’t even know how I navigated it, but I think one thing I really have to say is how great our clients are, because even though I really worried about looking unprofessional or, canceling a session, especially if it was last minute I have never had a client say anything but positive things to me. Oh yes, look after your daughter. Don’t worry about it. We’ll reschedule.

I think sometimes we worry about what is our clients going to think and I think it shows that you are human because you too have to cancel. And it also gave me more empathy on people who have to cancel last minute, especially due to kid related issues. I have to say I have not ever charged a client since a late fee due to child related issues because I get it. I totally get it.

Yeah. I 100% agree because I know sometimes my babysitter at the time. She would say, oh, I’m off for a week, so I’d have to figure out childcare. And I’m grateful for my family who’s been able to step in here and there, but that also meant I had to rearrange my schedule or do less clients. And you’re right, clients are pretty understandable because they get it. They’re also in the parent trenches as well, and can understand and empathize and are pretty flexible.

So speaking of having to change schedules and especially when kids are sick, what changes did you make to your schedule or workload after becoming a mom? Not even just with the unpredictability, just in general.

So I reduced my hours, how much time I would work per day, and the number of clients I see because I really want to make space for family time and being able to attend my daughter’s swimming lessons. I also decided not to work on Fridays anymore, but sometimes I try to fit a meeting in here and there.

And I realized actually by Thursdays I was already pretty tired. So it actually was really great that I took the Fridays off to just take care of myself and also get to spend time with my daughter.

Also, I’ve realized that it’s important to take some self-care time, right? Find time to go outside. Exercise, do all these things because I had found before that it’s so easy to just sit behind a computer all day and just work. But this has forced me to actually do other things and take care of myself as a therapist because your child will get bored being in the house all day. So it made me, okay, let’s go for a walk, or let’s go to the park. So making sure I schedule in those times to actually connect and also take care of her was really important.

Absolutely. Has motherhood strengthened your skills or changed your perspective as a therapist or entrepreneur?

For sure as a therapist has given me a much deeper empathy for parents and caregivers and just clients in general. I can now understand on a lived level they exhaustion the constant juggling and the emotional ups and downs that life is right, especially with raising a child. That perspective helps me connect with clients in a more real and compassionate way.

It’s also sharpened my ability to set boundaries and prioritize, which is huge as both the clinician and a business owner. When you have limited time and energy, you really want to focus on what matters. Whether that’s in session, running a practice, or being at home. And as an entrepreneur, motherhood has taught me flexibility and creativity, especially as kids being unpredictable.

So it’s business sometimes. I’ve learned how to pivot quickly or problem solve or keep things moving. And I also believe that, especially the creativity part, it wants you to expand and do new ideas and thinking of how ways you can support and empower the community that I work with. That’s definitely what motherhood has helped me with.

I couldn’t agree with you more, and I think one of the things for me is, now, I’ve mentioned this on the podcast several times, that passive income is the thing that I love and it’s why I wrote the Passive Practice, my book. But in saying that, having my daughter really changed my perspective on how I really want to be there for her and, having my availability tied to clients a hundred percent of the time. I knew long-term would not be sustainable. I already had a lot of my passive income streams built way before I had my daughter, but it had me reevaluate my priorities and it had me reevaluate my goals. And what do I want to see for myself? I want to be that soccer mom that drives all the kids everywhere. I want to be more present in my child’s life. And I think that really made me think about, do I want one-to-ones to be the main portion of my business now? As of right now, I still do one-to-ones and I don’t anticipate not doing them, but it’s really nice when your time isn’t a hundred percent tied to your availability because that can be very challenging, especially when you have these alternate goals or other goals that you want to do as well.

Yeah, I would totally agree. And why it was important for me to start a group practice right, I’m happy that clients all want to come to me, but it’s important that, if I’m full, that clients have other therapists they can go to, which is why I’m grateful for my team, and it’s also allowed me to start to think of more ideas of what I can do in terms of creating a course or a workbook and even writing my children’s book because. I now see, especially even though I have always worked with children, that the importance of working and creating other avenues for children to be inspired or get the support they need emotionally and mentally.

And give the support for parents and caregivers because I’ve also seen the challenges that children face at school or discrimination or other things. It’s allow me to now see the importance of providing other avenues for them.

Absolutely. What encouragement do you offer to any new moms stepping into private practice?

Yes. My advice for new moms stepping into private practice is give yourself permission to build your business in a way that actually works for you and your family. The way my private practice is set up may be different from yours, and that’s okay. Also, if you don’t want work evenings or weekends, that is okay.

I think there is this pressure to make sure that we’re available for clients because, oh, they might be more available in the evenings, but if that doesn’t work for you, that’s okay. There will be clients if they truly want to work with you, will find a way to meet with you earlier in the day, right? So trying to make a schedule that works for you so that you’re not overextending yourself.

Also start small, set realistic goals and remember that flexibility is your friend. Some days you’ll feel like you’re thriving, and the other days you’ll be just getting through it, and that’s okay. What matters is consistency, not perfection.

Also lean into your supports, whether that’s business partners, childcare, or your community. I know that for me, my supports have been other therapists who also have kids and we’re all able to share in the ins and outs and the challenges of that and how we can support each other as well as my family who has been truly supportive with caring from my child when I’m like just have to do this meeting or something.

And most importantly, trust that being a mom actually gives you unique strengths as a practitioner and entrepreneur. The patience, resilience, and creativity use every day imperative are the same qualities. It will help you grow your practice.

Absolutely. And I just want to go back to when you mentioned designing a practice that you love. That’s what this podcast is all about. Designing a practice that fits your life, that fits you, that isn’t this cookie cutter practice, which I don’t think any practice is cookie cutter because it really does, and it should fit you and whatever that looks like.

Whether it’s you want to work 40 hours a week, whether you want to work 10 hours a week, whether you want to work 20 hours a week, whether you want to have passive income streams, whether you want to have alternate income streams, whether your private practice is on the side of a full-time employment that you have all of these could be right for you.

And I think just like you said, Chantal, design it around your life because that’s going to make it sustainable and it’s also going to help you attain whatever your goals are quicker.

Yes. Couldn’t agree more because you don’t want to resent your practice for how it impacts your family. I agree. It’s still a work in progress for myself. Sometimes I work till later than I want to, but I’m slowly trying to just have my evenings for my family, right? So it’s a work in progress. I know that you’re allowed to change your schedule if you need to. What works for you? I have to plan mine around childcare, right? If I don’t have it, then I just can’t fit clients in there. Make it what you want it to be.

Chantal, I know you offer clinical supervision in your practice. Can you tell us a little bit about your approach and who would be a good fit to work with you?

Yeah, so I offer clinical supervisions to new graduate and psychotherapists to season social workers by psychotherapists so I can support and work with anyone around children issues, anxiety, depression. If you are doing CBT, EMDR, DBT, different strategies. I would like to think I am pretty collaborative and just want to support a supervisee and make sure that they can support their client in the best ways possible.

So I provide individual, didactic, in group. So feel free to visit my website and we can discuss what you would like your supervision to look like.

If you’re interested in receiving clinical supervision from Chantal, you can check out her website winroseoasiscounselling.com

Or you can simply scroll down to the show notes and click on link.

Chantal, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today to discuss navigating private practice and being a new mom.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s episode, and I hope you join me again soon on The Designer Practice Podcast.

Until next time, bye for now.

Credits & Disclaimers

Music by Denis Pavlov Music from Pixabay

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